Career-oriented curriculum development for a master degree program for distance education

Chen Li and Li Shuang
Beijing Normal University
China

Professional development for staff working in distance education in mainland China is a vital task at this moment. The study aims at developing a career-oriented master degree program for distance education by scientific methods, which is a pilot study in mainland China. The study has taken about five years and adopted both quantitative and qualitative approaches, such as interviewing, questionnaires, and Delphi and DACUM, among others.

This paper presents the complete development process and the main findings. The paper includes five parts:

• the first part introduces the background to the project;

• the second describes the competence-model required for staff in distance education by the Delphi approach;

• the third introduces the responsibilities and competences for five key roles: policymaker, manager, researcher, course manager, and professor, which are found by DACUM;

• the fourth introduces the master degree program for Distance Education suitable for mainland China.

• the final part summarizes the whole project and offers suggestions on how to support staff professional development. The authors would like to share our findings and new master degree program with academics from all over the world